Israel's security leaders ought not to have been surprised when Hamas fired two long-range Iranian-made Grad missiles Wednesday night, Feb. 23 at the Negev cities of Beersheba and Netivot. The attack occurred exactly when Iranian Navy commander Adm. Habibollah Sayyari was due in Syria's Latakia port to attend the welcoming party for the two Iranian warships which made it through the Suez Canal without US or Israeli interference. It also marked a fresh, redoubled Hamas offensive against Israel.

The two Iranian warships transited the Suez Canal and have reached the Mediterranean, Iran state TV announced Sunday, Feb. 20.  Cairo is still saying they will sail only Monday.  debkafile reports Tehran and Cairo have connived fake delays to obscure the ships' movements. Egypt's military rulers' permission for their passage was not contingent on an inspection of their freights for banned cargo. Sunday, the region was beset with a sandstorm which would have masked the flotilla from spy satellites.

Without serious aforethought, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak waved through another 3,000 Egyptian troops into North Sinai, raising their number to 4,000 and virtually scrapping the key demilitarization clause of the 1979 peace treaty. No conditions were laid down and no timeline or operational limits set, debkafile's sources report.  Israel asked the military rulers in Cairo – directly and through Washington - to deny Iranian warships passage through the Suez Canal – but was ignored.

The US and Israel made the same mistake of using Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman as their single line of information on Egypt - and were caught napping. They are still woefully wanting on Egyptian political and military intelligence.

Twenty-four hours after Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the Egyptian upheaval had no military connotations for Israel, the Iranian frigate Alvand and cruiser Kharg transited the Suez Canal on their way to Syria.  Wednesday night, Feb. 16, their passage was termed "a provocation" by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. In Beirut, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah said he was looking forward to Israel going to war on Lebanon because then his men would capture Galilee.

The message Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, brought Israel Sunday, Feb. 13, was that the 1979 peace accord with Egypt is not in jeopardy. He tried giving this assurance to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Gen. Benny Gantz - who became Israel's 20th chief of staff Monday. Both sides ignored Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour's comment: Camp David is finished. Gen. Gantz has the job of overhauling the IDF for five fronts.

Friday night, Feb. 11, as Egypt celebrated Hosni Mubarak exit, Israel counted the cost of losing its most important strategic partner in the region. Thirty-two years of peace leave Israel militarily unprepared for the unknown on their 270-kilometer long southern border; no experience of desert combat; an army trained and equipped only for the hostile fronts of Iran, Lebanon's Hizballah and Syria; a dearth of intelligence about the Egyptian army and its commanders, and no clue to the new rulers' intentions.

Israel's new chief of staff Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz is saddled with might task of rebuilding Israel's armed forces from scratch to fit the potential menace posed by the upheaval in Egypt. Ashkenazi worked closely with Washington to attune combined US-Israel military resources to possible combat with Iran.

Hamas while preparing follow-up attacks on the Sinai gas pipeline after Saturday's explosion has opened the Egyptian-Israeli border region to Al Qaeda jihadists, international smugglers and criminal gangs - all heading for the Israel border. Egypt lacks the manpower for securing the entire Sinai Peninsula. Its troops are concentrating on securing Sharm el Sheikh and the eastern bank of the Suez Canal. Hamas is left to prey on North Sinai and make it a launching pad for terror attacks on Israel.

Egypt's suspension of gas supplies to Israel after the North Sinai pipeline was blown up Saturday, Feb 5 has suddenly cut Israel off from 25-30 percent of its gas needs and 80 percent of Jordan's. After the blast, Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq announced that gas supplied to both countries under contract would henceforth be diverted to domestic requirements. Israel is also deeply concerned by spreading Hamas occupation of North Sinai and on high alert for more sabotage of its power installations.

From mid-week Israel has been feeding Vice President Omar Suleiman intelligence at his request and with Washington's approval. It includes aerial intelligence from the main hubs of unrest and naval patrols to secure Suez Canal passage. Israel has beefed up its border units on the Egyptian border and surveillance ...

Skillful choreography, not just spontaneous popular dissent, brought Hosni Mubarak's 30 years as president to an end Tuesday night, Feb. 2. In fact, the hands of the United States, Britain and Egyptian army heads were plain to see at every stage.The axing of Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant as Israel's next chief of staff – on the same day - was contrived too. Maj. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi has been building momentum to challenge Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak as a future political leader.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, Jan 31 he feared Egypt could end up with a radical Islamic regime as in Iran that would go against the region's interests for peace and stability.He also made the gesture of allowing the first Egyptian military troops to enter Sinai since the military since the 1979 peace treaty.

Netanyahu's first reactions to events in Egypt did not represent  a far-sighted assessment of the fast-moving Egyptian epic but resistance to change.

Egypt, one of the only two Arab states to sign peace with Israel, is wobbling dangerously on the brink of revolutionary change. This week, Israel was dismayed to find itself looking suddenly at three latently hostile fronts about to spring up around its borders: After Lebanon was dropped into the Iranian orbit, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood gained altitude, and Hamas, its Palestinian offshoot in Gaza, is making hay, puffing itself up as an important new Middle East player.

The first take of the "Palestine Papers run Sunday night, Jan. 23, appearing on the Qatar-owned Arabic Al-Jazeera TV network is a transparent attempt to discredit Palestinian Authority leaders, especially Mahmoud Abbas and Saab Erekat, as ready to sell their people out by exaggerated concessions to Israel - especially on Jerusalem and Temple Mount. Both dismiss the "papers" as a pack of half-truths and distortions.

debkafile reveals they were sold to the TV network by a disgruntled Palestinian staffer fired from the PA's NFU-Negotiating Support Team.

Less than 24 hours after the breakdown of its nuclear dialogue with the six world powers in Istanbul, Iran announced plans Sunday, Jan. 23, to send a fleet of warships, including a home-made destroyer, on operational and intelligence-gathering missions to the Red Sea and on to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.  debkafile's military sources: Parts of the fleet will in fact be deployed in the three waters around Israel's southern and western shores.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has resigned from Labor and formed a new party called Atzmaut (Independence.) Four of the 13 party members have so far followed him. Barak stays on as defense minister in the coalition headed by Binyamin Netanyahu. debkafile reports the two were in sync every step of the way. Three Labor ministers, Yaacov Herzog, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Avishai Braverman quit the government. Barak introduced the new party Monday, Jan. 17, as "centrist, Zionist and democratic."

Despite the ill-fated American involvement in Lebanon of former years, the Obama administration believes he can beat Tehran at its own game by backing the pro-Western coalition headed by Saad Hariri and bringing his father's assassins, Hizballah, to justice. Tehran is banking on Hizballah's prowess as the strongest military ...

Experts of Khatam al-Anbiya, the engineering arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards-IRGC, are supervising the rapid construction of a system of fortifications that crisscrosses the entire 360- square kilometer-area of the Gaza Strip - wholly underground. The Gaza system is more advanced than the one Iran built for Hizballah. Tehran has also smuggled into ...

Tuesday, Jan. 11, Iran's intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi called his second news conference in two days to pour more abuse on Israel and its spy agency and accuse them of trying to retard "scientific progress in Muslim nations." He displayed weapons allegedly used by "more than 10" suspected Mossad agents against Iran's nuclear scientists and threatened neighbors harboring "Zionist facilities" with "heavy blows."
debkafile: Iran is only just starting its intelligence war on Israel. No comment from Jerusalem.